Nearly everyone has been deeply affected by the decline of Canada’s economy. From housing to groceries to fuel prices, it’s impossible to miss — everything is harder to afford.But what are the root causes for this?There’s debate as to how much Canada’s affordability crisis is the result of the decade under Trudeau’s Liberal government. It’s hard to see past their inflationary spending as a major contributor to the problem. And things don’t appear to have changed either. PM Mark Carney’s plan to dramatically increase spending and the deficit through debt financing will likely exacerbate inflation in the coming months and years, should his budget pass.But another contributing factor to this affordability crisis, one perhaps less well understood, is also being experienced globally. Evidence suggests the rise in the cost of living is correlated to some degree with the rapid rise of technology, since the beginning of the new millennium.Initially, that might seem counterintuitive. Shouldn’t advances in technology save us time and money?While some would have you believe technological advancements are evidence of progress, an accompanying unstable economy and persistent social upheaval are indicative of something less benevolent..Everyday people are clamouring for change. From the Yellow Vest movement to the Freedom Convoy, disillusioned Canadians are increasingly speaking out.In response, the government has attempted to demonize anything remotely populist by labelling everyday Canadians as misogynist and racist, a “fringe minority” with unacceptable views. Even our new technocrat PM, while still an informal economic advisor to Trudeau, weighed in on the Freedom Convoy, calling it “sedition.”Conservative politicians can’t escape the malarky either. Because CPC leader Pierre Poilievre dares to talk about the hardship Canadians are facing, mainstream media derides him as too angry and Trump-like. Perhaps they should try living off lower wages, to broaden their perspectives. You see, those in the media as well as political and technocratic elites are trying to put a positive spin on current affairs. They have their own rationale for Canada’s lingering economic and social malaise.Leftist ideologues are pushing the narrative that the current economic downturn is a sacrifice — a necessary sacrifice — for the good of the future. To them, this socio-economic inequality is necessary before a better life for everyone can be reached, like the inequality recorded after the first industrial revolution. Beginning in the late 18th century, free market capitalism was entrenched as the dominant political and economic system.Klaus Schwab, the former executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), likes to call the people making this sacrifice the “precariat”, because of their precarious lives..“The ever-growing precariat,” Schwab writes on the WEF website, “— the millions of people who face a bits-and-pieces life of unstable, often unpaid labor, having to rely on money wages alone. They are supplicants, without what sociologists call ‘agency,’ who depend on discretionary favors from bureaucrats, family members, and occasional employers.”Schwab’s precariat class engulfs many people that used to earn a decent living from their jobs.Today, the so-called fourth industrial revolution, with its advancement in the interconnectivity between technologies and the automation of many tasks, has led to the elimination of many conventional energy, manufacturing, and service jobs worldwide. There is now a wider gap than ever between the average person and the ultra-rich, one that would make the kings of old green with envy.While energy production, manufacturing and service have become more streamlined, there appear to be numerous “side-effects.”Some of the smaller side-effects we’ve already borne witness to include unwelcoming and impersonal automated checkouts, insipid online articles written by AI, convoluted automated answering services, and automobiles so electronically enhanced that even a skilled mechanic must hook them up to a computer to accurately diagnose and fix them.But the side-effects of technology don’t stop there. They have affected Canadians on a grand scale — by replacing us..While Alberta continues to bleed out oil and gas jobs, losing 35,000 from 2014-2024, advancements in so-called clean energy technology, coupled with Liberal lawfare enforcing net zero ideology, have prevented investors from financing any new pipeline projects. Carney has shown no sign he will change this, sticking to his own verbal commitments to net zero ideology, as divulged in his book Value(s).And while Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) president Gil McGowan, who called for a “general strike” of the working class this October, demands the UCP diversify Alberta’s energy sector away from oil and gas, there’s little proof this has been a successful economic strategy for bigger, richer countries like Canada.Germany’s fraught green energy transition provides a cautionary tale. France has experienced a dramatic slowdown as well, having already increased its reliance on nuclear power to generate clean electricity, while running into a barrier preventing the further reduction of emissions from transportation and buildings. Moreover, the countries which already dominantly rely on renewable energy may not be good examples to model ourselves after. Concerningly, those countries with heavy (90%+) reliance on renewables are either very small in comparison to Canada (such as Iceland and Norway) or they have a substantially lower GDP per capita (such as Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo).Of course, Alberta is not alone in its woes. Easterners have also experienced unwanted side-effects from the fourth industrial revolution, including in Ontario.We have so-called “smart factories”, which are so smart they have replaced innumerable manufacturing jobs, most prominently in the automotive sector. Ford, Chrysler and GM have all used the production advantage provided by smart factories and automation as an opportunity to lay off workers in droves. The Ontario cities of Brampton, Oshawa, St. Thomas, and Windsor have lost jobs in the tens of thousands, and the overall job losses in Ontario’s manufacturing sector were a crippling 300,000 between 2002-2022.If the battle lines are not clearly drawn for Alberta, Ontario, or even all of Canada, they should be. What’s going on is a battle between technocracy and populism. Not just for the soul of our nation, but for its tangible existence — our people. PM Mark Carney, the Liberal Party of Canada, and other WEF-style ideologues are only fooling themselves if they ignore the mire that technocracy has driven the European Union into.Meanwhile, Canadians who demand the resignation of Poilievre or that he change his “leadership style” are completely disingenuous. What they want is for populism and the “precariat” — for you and me — to shut up. Make the necessary sacrifice for them, and without complaint.
